Sunday, November 23, 2014

Châteauneuf du Pape

At AUCP, there is a course all about French wines. I'm not in it, but yesterday they had a class outing, and the rest of us were allowed to come along! We went to Châteauneuf du Pape, a region about an hour and twenty minutes from Aix that is quite famous for its wine.

We went to three wineries during the day: Château Fortia, Domaine de Beaurenard, and Ogier. I quickly realized that, not being in the course, I was completely out of my depth. We tasted four wines at each of the wineries, and although they all tasted lovely, I was not very good at describing the differences, nor could I answer any of the wine professor's questions about how the wine was made. I did learn a little about wine tasting and the making of wine, and it was a pretty interesting day!

There isn't a ton of commentary to be given on most of what we did, but I thought I'd share some of the pictures. Our first stop was Château Fortia:

The owners still live in this château

Two of the wines we tasted

Between the first and second stops, we walked up to the actual Châteauneuf du Pape. It has been completely destroyed over the years, but it had a nice view, and we had a little picnic.



Our second stop was Domaine de Beaurenard, which means domain of the beautiful fox. There wasn't someone available to give us a tour since it was Saturday, so our professor just gave us the tour himself. Because he knows that much about wine and how it is made. He's a real expert!


 Another super cool house where the owners live. Owning a winery has its props.

There are 14 types of grape that can be used to make Châteauneuf du Pape. They were all displayed together here.




Our last stop was Orgia. They had really cool garden that exhibits the four types of soil in which grapes are grown to make Châteauneuf du Pape. They also had my favorite white of the day!



I am by no means an expert on wine, but I was quite impressed by what I saw - and tasted - at all the wineries! I was also quite impressed by our professor. He was actually correcting the people who work at the wineries. And he puts more thought into tasting a wine than I have ever seen!

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